it just seems inaccurate to imagine men and women as equally alien from each other. In communities like LW, that’s just not the case.
I think this is astute; Eliezer’s points about equality and symmetry may be true across the population, but do not seem to reflect the cultural reality of LW, and that’s worth noting if the cultural reality of LW is what one wants to affect.
Something called “standpoint theory” makes a similar claim: people without social power understand people with social power better than powerful people understand the powerless, because the powerless have a greater need to understand: the favor or disfavor of the powerful can have a big effect on the powerless, but having inaccurate beliefs about the powerless usually won’t affect the powerful very much. (So domestic servants understand their employers better than employers understand their domestic servants, blacks understand whites better than whites understand blacks, and women understand men better than men understand women.)
Eliezer’s points about equality and symmetry may be true across the population
I don’t even think it’s true across the population. How many women do you know who primarily read books, watch movies, read news articles and listen to music created by men? And how many of the opposite? For the 100 top grossing films of 2007, there were 3 female directors and 109 male directors involved. (Off the top of my head) the ratio of news articles written by men vs women is something like 7:1. Women probably have a better understanding of the “male perspective” than men have of the “female perspective,” just from the different levels of exposure.
My favorite SF author is a woman: L. M. Bujold. Her most popular character is male. She has more than once received the “compliment” from male fans: “You write like a man!”. She says that it took her a long time to decide how to respond to this. Next time she plans to answer brightly “Oh, really? Like which man?”
I’ve enjoyed several of her books. She writes her romances like a woman (this is often my preference; male authors often write their male leads as merely being so cool that women are obligated to fall for them). In this, she reminds me of Cherryh and (Elizabeth) Moon, who I also like.
Indeed; that’s been mentioned in a couple of other comments as well. I think gender is only a topic here because of the events that triggered the post.
I think this is astute; Eliezer’s points about equality and symmetry may be true across the population, but do not seem to reflect the cultural reality of LW, and that’s worth noting if the cultural reality of LW is what one wants to affect.
Something called “standpoint theory” makes a similar claim: people without social power understand people with social power better than powerful people understand the powerless, because the powerless have a greater need to understand: the favor or disfavor of the powerful can have a big effect on the powerless, but having inaccurate beliefs about the powerless usually won’t affect the powerful very much. (So domestic servants understand their employers better than employers understand their domestic servants, blacks understand whites better than whites understand blacks, and women understand men better than men understand women.)
That’s really interesting, thank you.
I don’t even think it’s true across the population. How many women do you know who primarily read books, watch movies, read news articles and listen to music created by men? And how many of the opposite? For the 100 top grossing films of 2007, there were 3 female directors and 109 male directors involved. (Off the top of my head) the ratio of news articles written by men vs women is something like 7:1. Women probably have a better understanding of the “male perspective” than men have of the “female perspective,” just from the different levels of exposure.
My favorite SF author is a woman: L. M. Bujold. Her most popular character is male. She has more than once received the “compliment” from male fans: “You write like a man!”. She says that it took her a long time to decide how to respond to this. Next time she plans to answer brightly “Oh, really? Like which man?”
I think pen names have pretty convincingly showed that a woman’s writing can be indistinguishable from a man’s if she wants it to be.
(George Eliot is the famous one but James Tiptree Jr. is my favorite.)
Ouch. I finally made the connection to the Turing test.
I’ve enjoyed several of her books. She writes her romances like a woman (this is often my preference; male authors often write their male leads as merely being so cool that women are obligated to fall for them). In this, she reminds me of Cherryh and (Elizabeth) Moon, who I also like.
BTW, it’s not just men and women that can find each other alien, as discussed here and here.
Indeed; that’s been mentioned in a couple of other comments as well. I think gender is only a topic here because of the events that triggered the post.